Lluís Juste De Nin

L'Esquerrà, El Zurdo

(b. 1945, Spain)

El Guepard 1970

Lluís Juste De Nin is a Catalan cartoonist, caricaturist and illustrator, known for his connections with the world of fashion through the brand Armand Basi. He has been active since the 1960s, when he drew for the illegal publications of anti-Francoism movements like PSUC and Assemblea de Catalu, which he signed "El Zurdo". He subsequently illustrated many articles by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán for Mundo Obrero, the periodical of the Communist Party of Spain.

In the 1980s he was commissioned by the Spanish government to create a comics character called 'La Norma' with writer Tísner. The character was the mascot of the first campaign for the normalization of the Catalan language. Also in the 1980s, he illustrated the news of the day in his series 'Petant la xerrada' in Canigó. By now, he signed his drawings "L'Esquerrà" (The Left).

La Muntanaya Màgica

Coming from a family of artists and authors, he released his biographical graphic novel 'ELS NIN. Memòries a llapis d'una família catalana' with publisher Planeta Agostin in 2004. Under the guise of a family story of three centuries, Juste de Nin presented a detailed chronicle of Spanish history through 320 pages of comics format drawings manuscripts.

He has published several graphic novels through Edicions de Ponent since 2007. The first was 'Montecristo 1941', a contemporary take on Alexandre Dumas' classic. It was followed by 'El Guepard 1970' in 2008, a story about Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy and several other free adaptations of classics by De Maupassant, Frederic Morell, Thomas Mann and William Thackeray to illustrate the history of Spain. These include 'Barcelona 1931. L'Educació Sentimental' (2009), ,'El Quart Poder' (2010), 'La Muntanaya Màgica' (2011), 'La Fira de les Vanitats' (2012) and 'La Guerra dels Besavis' (2013).